


Metamorphoses

by de_corporis



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: M/M, Oracle Prompto Argentum, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-16
Updated: 2018-08-16
Packaged: 2019-06-28 01:53:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15697731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/de_corporis/pseuds/de_corporis
Summary: “Picus,” said Ardyn again. He stepped toward Prompto and extended his hand, like he wanted Prompto to take it. “Picus, come with me.”Once upon a time, a King loved an Oracle.





	Metamorphoses

When Prompto first saw Altissia, he thought it was the most beautiful city in all of Eos. While Insomnia was sleek and modern, and Lestallum had a certain seedy charm, Altissia-by-the Sea was like something out of a fairytale. Its delicately shaped arches and bridges were reminiscent of the elaborate cakes displayed in fine pâtisseries, the gentle breezes blowing off of the ocean were full of music, and the air was rich with the smell of delicious food. It was everything a photographer could possibly wish for, and Prompto had been eager to indulge himself.

That was three days ago. Now, the once serene city was in the midst of being ripped to pieces by a combination of mortal callousness and divine wrath, the destruction of the Imperial war machine compounded by the ferocity of the Tidemother’s waves. Prompto scrambled behind Gladio as they traversed the torn-up streets, his breath catching painfully in his throat as he struggled to keep up, and tried not to think about how yesterday the four of them had been eating gelato and laughing.

“Gladio,” he said, stumbling over the loose stones of what had once been a walkway, “Gladio, wait a second. Your legs are like twice as long as mine.”

Gladio glanced back. “We need to push on.” He pointed at the sky, where the lights of Imperial dropships glowed a sickly red against ash gray clouds. “The ritual has to be over by now, and we can’t let the Empire take control of the altar.”

Prompto bit his lip. His legs ached, and he could feel a blister developing on his heel. But Gladio was right. Reaching the altar - reaching Noct - was the most important thing.

 _Such a weakling_ , whispered the voice inside his head that never failed to point out when he couldn’t keep up with the others, when he wasn’t good enough, when he didn’t belong. _You’re going to fall behind because you can’t cut it._

_Shut up._

“Yeah,” he said aloud, and managed a curt nod. “Yeah. I got this.”

“You do,” agreed Gladio, and there was a note of warmth beneath his usual gruffness. “Now let’s move.”

There was no more talking after that. All their efforts were spent on traversing the city as it crumbled around them. Rain poured from the ever-darkening sky, making the stone walkways slick and treacherous, and Prompto tripped and fell more times than he’d care to admit. By the time the altar finally came into view, he was exhausted, soaked to the bone, and shivering with cold.

And they were too late.

Ardyn Izunia was crouched over Ignis’ body, watching in satisfaction as the advisor thrashed helplessly on the slick stones. Streaks of purple fire lashed across his fair skin, and he screamed like a wounded animal caught in a trap. Prompto had never heard Ignis scream like that, not even when he’d been blasted by a coeurl’s whiskers.

But at least he was still alive. The limp bodies of Noctis and Luna were lying just a short ways away, and they were still as stone.

“You’re a bit too late to save the day,” said Ardyn, slow and malicious. His gaze trailed dismissively over Gladio to fix on Prompto. Prompto swallowed hard. Ever since their first encounter at Galdin Quay, there had been something unsettling about the way Ardyn looked at him. It was different from the condescension he gave Gladio or the indulgent superiority he saved for Noctis. It was something else, a curious mixture of rage, disgust, and yearning that made Prompto feel strange and off-balance, like he was falling from a great height into unknown depths.

He felt that way now. His heart was hammering in his chest, and his thoughts were dizzy and unfocused.

Ardyn kept his eyes trained on Prompto as words dripped from his mouth like poisoned honey. “Look at your poor king,” he said, “who has such unworthy companions. It fell to the _Oracle_ -” his eyes burned like embers as he spat out the title “- to sacrifice herself to save him. Where were you?”

Ignis was still screaming. Noctis and Luna were still pale and motionless. The precipice yawned beneath Prompto’s feet. And Prompto -

\- Prompto flew.

“No,” he said, or heard himself say. He was somewhere else, removed from his body, except he wasn’t, not exactly. He was both Prompto and not-Prompto, all the harsh edges and fractured pieces that lurked beneath his skin melded together in a seamless whole. The taunting voice that constantly whispered _freak, monster, not good enough, never good enough_ fell silent, washed away in a sea of peace.

He knew what he needed to do.

“No,” he said again, and his voice was louder than the storm. He stepped toward Ignis and knelt at his friend’s side, then pressed his hands against the tormented skin.

The magic of the Lucii had always been cruel. It could not be otherwise, for it was the gift of Bahamut, and the god of war demanded sacrifices of blood. The blood it demanded now was Ignis’, and it burned through his veins with savage hunger. Just a few more minutes and it would have what it wanted.

Prompto wouldn’t let it.

It was as instinctual as breathing to reach inside himself and call upon the thread of golden light that thrummed in his veins. Coaxing it to do what he wanted was more difficult - it had lain dormant for so long, and at first it didn’t want to yield to him. It burned too bright and too hot, and Prompto heard Ignis cry out in protest. But then his body remembered how to yield, to be less forceful in his commands and simply let the light flow through him and into Ignis, giving it direction only when he needed to.

He sent the light racing after the pain tearing through Ignis’ body, using pulses of golden warmth to tame the purple fire. Ignis started to relax, his pained cries easing off into whimpers. His breath came easier, and he no longer thrashed like a panicked animal held fast in a vise.

But the magic of the kings pushed back. _A price,_ it whispered, in a language Prompto had no recollection of ever hearing, but that he understood perfectly. _Our power demands a price, and not even an Oracle can deny us our due._

 _That may be so,_ answered Prompto, narrowing his eyes in concentration. _But it doesn’t have to be a life._

A warm breeze ruffled his hair, and a few flower petals drifted down to the stone next to him. They were creamy white streaked with a rich, deep blue, and Prompto could smell their perfume as they passed. He smiled. Snow gentians had always been his favorite.

Only he had never seen them before. Had he? They didn’t grow in Lucis.

One last flood of gold pulsed through his hands. Ignis gasped, then went still as the sickly purple light faded from his skin, leaving thick silver lines of scar tissue running up his forearms and splashed across his right eye. The Lucii had not taken his life, but they had still left their mark.

It would have to be enough.

Then the world tilted on its side, and the sense of peace and purpose that suffused Prompto was gone. He was himself again, awkward and clumsy and uncertain. A wave of dizziness rolled over him, and dark spots swam across his vision. His stomach roiled. He thought he might vomit.

When his vision cleared, Ardyn was staring at him. But it wasn’t the contemptuous stare Prompto was used to. His lips were parted and his eyes were wide, as if Prompto were the answer to some long-withheld mystery.

“Picus,” he said.

Prompto drew in a sharp breath. That word set something thrumming inside him, like a string after being plucked. He wasn’t sure that he liked the sensation.

“What?”

“Picus,” said Ardyn again. He stepped toward Prompto and extended his hand, like he wanted Prompto to take it. “Picus, _come with me_.”

“No.” Prompto shook his head and scrambled backward over the stones. “No way. I’m not going anywhere with you. Not ever.”

“Damn right he’s not,” growled Gladio. Prompto jerked as the Shield’s big, warm hands pulled him to his feet. The world had shrunk down to him and Ignis, then him and Ardyn; he’d forgotten anyone else was there. “Come on, Prom. Let’s get Noctis and Ignis and -”

Ardyn snarled. He leapt forward in a flash red fire - _a warp strike, Ardyn could **warp**_ \- and tore Prompto out of Gladio’s grasp. Prompto screamed and thrashed, trying to fight his way out of Ardyn’s iron grip, but the Chancellor just held on tighter.

“Go to sleep, Picus,” he said. “Just go to sleep, and I promise to take care of you.”

“No!” Prompto kicked out frantically, but he was helpless agains the larger man. “Let me go.”

“Then I’m afraid you leave me no choice,” said Ardyn. He raised his hand.

And Prompto fell back into the void.

* * *

Prompto dreamed.

In his dream, he was lying on his back in a field of snow gentians. The sky was a brilliant shade of cerulean blue, and the sunshine was warm on his skin. Everything was peaceful and lazy and perfect, and he was content to stretch his limbs and think of nothing at all.

“Dearest.”

He rolled onto his side and looked at Ardyn. Ardyn smiled at him, open and carefree, and his amber eyes were warm.

Prompto smiled back. “You found me.”

“Of course I did. I always will.” Ardyn reached out and touched Prompto’s hair. “I’ve missed you so.”

“Not as much as I missed you.” He nudged himself closer to Ardyn and ran his fingers through soft waves of burgundy hair. “Now kiss me.”

Ardyn laughed. “As my Oracle commands,” he said, and leaned leaned forward to bring their lips together. Prompto sighed, opening his mouth to Ardyn’s as flower petals swirled around them -

He woke up with a gasp. The dream melted away like fog in sunlight, leaving him cold and confused and scared. He remembered Altissia in chaos, Ignis burning, and Ardyn…

Ardyn…

Prompto jerked upright, only to fall immediately back down with a pained grunt. His head was caught in a vice grip of pain, and his stomach roiled in protest. He retched once, and then couldn’t stop, his body curling in on itself in protest as it struggled for air.

“Easy. You’ve had quite the ordeal.”

Large, warm hands ran down his back, rubbing gently. Light flashed in the corner of his eye, and he felt a wave of soothing coolness rush through his body. It reminded him of the way it felt when Noctis’ potions broke over his skin: instant relief, followed by a moment of exuberant buoyancy.

But Noctis wasn’t here, and Prompto didn’t have any potions.

He looked up at Ardyn’s face, so close to his own, and jerked away. He scrambled to his feet and took in his surroundings, looking frantically for a way out. The room he was in had metal walls and no windows, like a prison cell, but he could make out the rectangular outline of a door. He ran toward it and slammed his hands against it, trying to force it open. It wouldn’t budge.

He turned and looked back at Ardyn. “Let me out.”

Ardyn shook his head. “No.”

Prompto was trembling. He hoped desperately that Ardyn didn’t notice. “Look, I don’t know what your game is, but Noctis won’t fall for it. It’s not going to work.”

“I’m not after Noctis.” Ardyn stalked toward him, graceful despite his numerous layers of clothing. “Noctis doesn’t matter anymore. The only thing that matters is you.”

Prompto instinctively grabbed his right wrist. He could feel the barcode burning into his skin, a beacon that marked him irrevocably as an abomination. Of course Ardyn knew about that. Of course Ardyn knew what he was, and now Ardyn was going to torture him until he turned into some mindless slave like all the other MTs -

But Ardyn shook his head.

“Not that,” he said. Then he stepped in close, pressing Prompto against the cold metal door with no room to escape. He raised a hand and caressed his face, gentle as a lover.

“Picus,” he said, and kissed him.

Prompto had been kissed before. He hadn’t thought there was anything special about it - all of his kisses had been typical high school affairs: mostly chaste, with a few awkward attempts at tongue that resulted in teeth clashing together. They mostly left him feeling awkward and silly, and he was well aware that his partners were more interested in Prompto, the Prince’s Best Friend, than Prompto, the Geeky Photographer.

But Ardyn…Ardyn was kissing _him_ , and he knew what he was doing. He knew just how use his lips to urge Prompto’s apart, how to lightly touch his tongue to Prompto’s and make everything that much better by stroking his thumbs along the sensitive skin under Prompto’s jaw. He kissed Prompto like there was nothing more important in the world. No one else had ever kissed Prompto like that. No one else had wanted to.

It felt like coming home.

When Ardyn finally pulled away, his eyes shone like stars as he looked at Prompto. “Picus,” he said again, and leaned in to press another quick series of kisses against his jawbone. “I’ve missed you so.”

Prompto stared back at him, momentarily lost in a haze of pleasure. Then he remembered who he was with and tried to squirm away.

“Stop calling me that!”

“Don’t hide yourself from me, Picus.” There was a plaintive note in Ardyn’s voice, something mournful and sad. “Don’t be so cruel, not when I’ve found you at last.”

“I said, stop.” Prompto put his hands against Ardyn’s chest and shoved. To his surprise, the other man actually stepped back, and Prompto darted across the room.

“Just stay away from me!”

Ardyn stood still, his hands lax at his sides, staring at Prompto with devastation on his face. It was eerie. Prompto was used to the arrogant Imperial Chancellor, who smiled false smiles and told partial truths and delighted in tormenting Noctis. He had no idea what to make of an Ardyn Izunia who appeared vulnerable.

“When I first saw you, I thought you were created by the gods to torment me,” said Ardyn. “It would amuse them to create an automaton with the face of the First Oracle and dangle it before my eyes, to remind me of how much I had lost. And I hated you for it.”

Prompto laughed, high and hysterical. “Yeah, I got that part, believe me.”

Ardyn ignored him. “But I was mistaken,” he breathed. “You aren’t just a copy. You are Picus, reborn. You came back to me.”

“No.” Prompto shook his head. “Sorry. I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m just Prompto.”

“You are mistaken.” Ardyn stretched his hand out, inviting Prompto to take it. “I saw you in Alitissia. Only an Oracle could have saved that boy from the Ring of the Lucii. I saw it in your eyes. You’re my Picus. All you need to do is remember that, and embrace it.”

There, just for a second, Prompto saw loneliness in Ardyn’s face. He saw a man who had lost everything and been driven mad by it. And something inside him, the same presence that had overwhelmed him in Altissia, began to unfurl. It wanted to go to Ardyn, wrap his arms around him and hold him tight, and reassure him that he would never be alone again.

Prompto clenched his hands into fists. His fingers dug into the soft flesh of his palms, grounding him in the here and now. This was Ardyn. He was a liar, and cruel, and sadistic. He was playing another one of his sick, and Prompto wasn’t going to fall for it.

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” he spat, “but you’re nothing to me. And you never were.”

His words landed heavily in the abyss between them. Ardyn’s face twisted in pain - no, not pain, there was no way that monster could feel pain - then smoothed back into the condescending mask Prompto was used to.

“I see,” said Ardyn. “You only emerged when you were under duress. Kindness will not reach you. That’s all right.” He began stalking toward Prompto, a predator toying with its prey. “I can work with that.”

Prompto ran. There was nowhere to go, but he ran anyway, trying to keep as much distance between them as he could. For a while, Ardyn let him, a cruel smile tugging at the corners of his lips. Then he warped toward Prompto and wrapped his strong hands around Prompto’s throat.

“I’ll just have to drag you out.”

Ardyn threw him to the floor. Prompto curled into a ball, trying to protect himself from the blows Ardyn rained down on him. He told himself that he wouldn’t make a sound, that he wouldn’t give Ardyn the satisfaction of hearing him cry out in pain, but he couldn’t help whimpering when one of his cracked. He hated himself for how pathetic he was.

But then Ardyn stopped. Prompto lay on the floor, gasping for air while tears stung his eyes, and waited for the onslaught to begin again.

It didn’t. Ardyn reached down and carded his fingers gently through Prompto’s hair, and another burst of healing light flooded through him.

Then he was gone.

* * *

Prompto lost track of time.

He slept, sometimes, pressed into the corner with his knees tucked up to his chest. His dreams took him back to the field of snow gentians, where he was both himself and not-himself. Sometimes he was alone, and sometimes Ardyn was with him. The Ardyn in his dreams was everything the waking Ardyn was not: gentle and kind, with a smile like sunlight and laughter in his eyes.

Whenever Prompto woke up, his cheeks were wet, and his heart was as heavy as a stone in his chest.

The real Ardyn was a nightmare. The first few times he came to Prompto’s cell, Prompto tried to keep away from him. He knew it was futile. He knew Ardyn would catch him sooner rather than later, but he liked to pretend he had some chance of escape. He ran from corner to corner until he was exhausted, then finally collapsed into a heap and waited for his torment to begin.

But he eventually gave up. After the tenth visit - or maybe it was the twelfth; he’d lost count - he didn’t bother moving when Ardyn came in, not even to raise his head. He simply lay on the floor, closed his eyes, and waited for the pain to start.

It didn’t matter to Ardyn what Prompto did. Every time, he left Prompto black and blue. And every time, he healed him, leaving Prompto whole and refreshed and ready for another day of torment.

Then, one day, the ritual changed.

Ardyn came to him and didn’t touch him at all. He dropped to his knees before Prompto, his disheveled hair falling in his face, and began to speak.

Prompto couldn’t understand the words rolling off of Ardyn’s tongue. They weren’t entirely alien - some of the syllables were reminiscent of his long-ago lessons in classical Lucian - but the sense behind them was a mystery. But the longer Ardyn spoke, the clearer his words became. The part of Prompto that was not-Prompto - that was Picus - could understand them, and it whispered their meaning into Prompto’s psyche.

Ardyn’s words spoke of ages past, when he was King and Picus was Oracle. He spoke of love and loss, and how when Picus fell at the altar of Leviathan, all the light left the world. How he had wandered the earth, lost and alone, once Picus passed beyond his reach.

Ardyn finally fell silent and slumped down to the floor. He was utterly pathetic. His hair hung in lank strands, his shoulders drooped with exhaustion, and fat tears dripped down his cheeks. Every one of his thousands of years was etched on the lines of his face.

Prompto’s soul cracked wide open.

For a moment, they remained frozen in their tableau of sorrow and devastation. Then Picus slowly reached out and touched his fingers to Ardyn’s hair. Ardyn looked up at him, his eyes young and fragile, and Picus pulled him into his arms.

“I’m here,” he murmured in the ancient tongue of kings and Oracles, the tongue he had once used to proclaim his love for the King of Light. “I’m with you. Everything will be all right.”

It was a lie. But as they curled around each other, and kissed for the first time in over two thousand years, it was enough to pretend.


End file.
